Film Post Production Workflow

Post Production is where the real movie making magic happens, so making sure you know the correct indie filmmaking Post Production stages is key to making sure your post production process goes smoothly.

Things can get tricky in post production if you don’t follow the correct short film post production workflow, and you can find yourself wasting a lot of time redoing work. So here are my diy filmmaking post production steps and more importantly, their order.

The first step in the indie filmmaking post production process is when the editor organizes, labels, and syncs of all the footage. This can be a daunting task, but taking the time to do it before editing will save you lots of time in the long run. Next the editor assembles the initial rough edit. This can sometimes also be called a first cut.

After that, the director, producer, and any other key stakeholders review the rough cut and give the editor notes. The editor then takes those notes and makes a second cut. The Director, Producer, and stakeholders review again and give more notes. This process continues until a consensus is reached. Once the editor has all of the final notes, they polish a locked cut. A locked cut is the final cut of the film and means there will no longer be any edit changes.

This is a critical step that must be completed before passing the film to audio engineers, color correctionist, and special effects artist, as any changes to the cut after their work is complete will cause major problems.

Next in the indie filmmaking post production steps, the film’s audio is handed off to an audio engineer in the form of an OMF. The audio engineer then adds sound effects as well as processes and mixes the audio. Pro tip, if you’re hiring a composure to create original music instead of using stock music, then make sure you’ve included any music from the composure in the OMF you send to the audio engineer.

Simultaneously, the locked cut of the film is also handed off to a color correctionist to be color corrected. Often on low budget films, the editor is also the color correctionist. Once the color correction is complete, any shots that need special effects work done are passed off to a special effects artist. And finally in the low budget filmmaking post production steps, once all the audio and special effects shots are complete, the editor assembles it all into a final master export of the film.

So those are the essential steps of post production for indie filmmaking. As long as you follow them, you’ll be sure to avoid any post headaches and time sucks. That is as long as Stacey keeps that freaken cut locked!

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